


But Lonely Is So Lonely (Amour Courtois: The Uther, King of Contradiction, Retcon Remix)

by ProtoNeoRomantic



Series: Straining Courtesy [3]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Don't even know if I'm going to finish this, Dubious Consent Due To Identity Issues, Episode: s01e09 Excalibur, F/M, Heavy Angst, Insecurity, Loneliness, Maybe the therapy is working this time, Possible smut, Rating May Change, Slow Build, Tags May Change, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings, possible incest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-26
Updated: 2015-09-12
Packaged: 2018-04-17 07:27:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4657842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProtoNeoRomantic/pseuds/ProtoNeoRomantic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Morgana steals into Uther's bedchamber in the dead of night, he's unclear about her intentions and frankly, a little unsure of his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The King's Rest

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Amour Courtois](https://archiveofourown.org/works/44643) by [tigerlady (shetiger)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shetiger/pseuds/tigerlady). 



It's hardly dark when Uther retires. Scarcely a bite has passed his lips all the long while he sat at table. Scarcely a word either. His children's thinly veiled concern for him is overwhelming though they too hardly speak. With curt nods and stilted 'goodnights', he takes his leave of them and goes directly to his bedchamber. The usual meetings and reports seem pointless beyond enduring and he forgoes them without hesitation. Surely the world he had thought to leave forever can abide one evening without his intervention. The sun will rise whether he sees to it or not.

Restless, Uther lies in the dark like a cat, watchful to no real purpose. He has not slept in more than a day and now he is too tense. Too retroactively afraid of those things which he dared not think on while the battle still lay ahead. His own death. Leaving Arthur to flounder in his inexperience. The justice of Tristain's cause.

Now, in the growing stillness of the night, thought preys upon his disturbed mind and the sleep he longs for shuns him. He is plagued by deep regrets and trivial matters alike. He thinks of Ygraine and how close he has come to failing her again, to losing Arthur, whose life she purchased with her own. He wonders where Merlin really got that marvelous sword and what it must have been made of to allow him to do as he has done.

He thinks of Nimeuh with anger that doubts it's own justice but stands firm all the same. Knowing from her own lips that her spell must cost a life, how could he not have ask the obvious question? _Who?_ In his arrogance, Uther had assumed some lesser man must die to suit his needs, as men will do for kings from time to time. Had a sorceress the same arrogance, the same blindness?

But no! Despite her claim of innocence, Nimeuh has since proved herself villain enough. We will not think on it! But still his mind runs on. It will not be still.

He thinks of Gaius. His priceless friendship, certainly, but also the way that the man pricks at his soul, nettles his conscience as few have the privilege to dare. If he had told Gaius that Nimeuh's spell would cost a life, the old medler would have objected that though a king might have the right to take another's life, he had a responsibility not to do so for selfish ends. And he'd have found Uther's ends selfish indeed had he known the king had already an heir in blood if not in name, lacking only his word of acknowledgment.

He should have told Gaius of course, despite all that. If he had, the sharp physician might have pointed out the obvious risk that the life to be sacrificed would be that which he held most dear, that from which the newly created life took it's substance. Such was the twisted cruelty of magic. 

And what if Gaius had warned him? Would the hotblooded young king have had sense enough to listen, mad as both he and Ygraine had been driven by their quest to conceive? He would never have knowingly risked her life. And yet... Nimeuh's question still rings in his ears. _Do you wish you didn't have a son?_

One more subject he can't think on, Uther decides. His mind lights instead on Morgana, who worries him nearly as much as his son. Her wardship is a lie. By some relevant methods of reckoning (for half the kingdoms of Albion owe as much of their law to the ancient tribes of these islands as to the traditions of Rome) she is as much or more his heir than Arthur is. A fact which, as long as there is magic and prophecy in the world, may yet be divined.

To marry her well, to a great king or an ambitious prince, is to set up a rival to Arthur and a threat to Camelot. To marry her poorly, on the other hand, is to disgrace her and to betray Gerlois yet again. Not that (even at the arguably over-ripe age of twenty-four) she has shown any inclination whatsoever to be married.

And if she does not marry, what's to become of her? She is so beautiful. So proud. So strong. For a moment he imagines her, as a mature woman, sitting in the shadows while Arthur's Queen holds court, weaving tapestries and making bitter, ribald jokes at the expense of young lovers to mask her loneliness and disappointment. 

Uther turns over with a violent thrash that sends pain shooting through his shoulders. Another unproductive line of thought is discarded only to be replaced, once again, with thoughts of Arthur. 

In some ways, he is already so much more than Uther could have ever been, never mind at the same age. Oh, Arthur can be temperamental and impatient like his father. He can be a hard man, a ferocious warrior. But kindness, mercy, _justice_ ; these too are fundamental to his character. These virtues, which Uther must keep carefully in mind as he strives to be a righteous king, overflow in him as from the soul of Ygraine de Bois. Wisdom, patience, temperance; he will learn.

One day Arthur will be a Great King. This is the thought that quiets Uther's pains, comforts his soul, and helps him find sleep at last.


	2. These Shadows

It is a soft, gentle, subtle, _little_ sound. Less than a sigh. Well worn hinges moving as they have so many times before, burdened with the same weight as ever. It's almost nothing. But Uther is instantly awake, shaken from sleep as if by the thunder of chariots rolling into battle. Almost nothing is something. It is the sound of a door being opened. His chamber has been breached.

The King opens his eyes wide to let them adjust to the darkness. He quiets his breath, on guard against the possibility of assassins. Who else would dare enter his chamber in the dead of night without so much as announcing themselves? His personal servants know better. Gaius might _dare_ , but his stiff old bones could never move so quietly. Arthur, who would see no dare in it, could certainly move as silently as death if he wished, but why would he bother?

Uther sighs with relief as the soft swish of a satin slipper sliding across his Persian carpet gives him his answer at last. He curls his fingers around the coverlet and smiles privately to himself in the near total darkness. His midnight visitor is no assassin, no vengeful spirit from his past, no threat. It is only Morgana.

A strange impulse keeps Uther still. The room is not pitch black but it is dark enough. Like some night-hunting beast, he watches her, curious to see what she'll do next.

Morgana moves deeper into the room, but she does not approach his bed. She is a shadow upon shadow, her dim form revealed only by the thin moonlight seeping between the tightly fastened shutters. He himself must be nearly invisible to her, a vague still shape upon the mattress, even if that. A mere sense of space filled rather than empty. It is as if she is alone; and yet, he may watch her, as a disembodied spirit might.

Morgana hesitates a moment, then moves purposefully forward again. Making for the window, it appears. To open the shutters perhaps? To look upon the sleeping King? To watch him in secret as he now watches her? Uther cannot say why this thought excites him, but it does. It touches something nameless but visceral.

Uther watches. There is something about her movements. By turns bold and hesitant. It puts him in mind of another stealthy visitor who stole into his chamber unannounced some twenty-five years ago. She is taller than Vivienne, narrower at the waist and broader at the hips and shoulders. And yet, watching her dark form creep through the deeper darkness, Uther almost feels that he has traveled back in time.

Memory stirs within his breast, like the ghost of long dead desire. He has not been with a woman in over twenty years. Not since Ygraine's blessed light was stolen from the world.

The thought startles him, and yet it is Morgana who recoils. She takes a half a step backward and sucks in a sharp breath, almost but not quite a gasp. She has seen him, his eyes open in the dark. Watching her. 


	3. Challenge

Frozen, Morgana watches the eyes that have been watching her. There is a burst of panicked movement before her breast. A conciliatory gesture? Or a warding one? Uther can determine nothing for certain in this muddy dimness, yet he feels strangely relaxed. He feels compelled neither to move nor to speak. He is a wolf in his own den; it is she who has intruded, who owes an explanation.

“I'm sorry, My Lord,” Morgana stammers, her distressed tone doing little to clarify the meaning of the gesture. “I didn't mean to wake you.” As she turns her face slightly away, a shaft of moonlight catches her profile just so. Uther sees again before his eyes the image of Vivienne etched upon his mind lo these many years, standing between light and shadow, biting her lip in guilty apprehension and (as he now recognizes) wringing her hands. Desperate to be held. Terrified of being rebuked. Of being judged.

A shiver runs through Uther's soul. The scene is simply too familiar. His heart is hammering now, far worse than in the face of certain death. Worse even than in the first sick, horrifying moment of realization that he is alive and has slain Tristain yet again. He shifts so as to be not quite so vulnerably recumbent. “Then what, pray tell,” he challenges her skeptically, “did you intend?”

Too long a moment passes. “I wanted to make sure you were all right,” Morgana mumbles at last. The admission sounds hesitant, but genuine. Embarrassed. She turns more squarely to face him, and her features, though indistinct, are nonetheless distinctly her own. The night feels suddenly more real, more common, as if it has stopped holding it's breath.

Uther sighs, feeling both relived and foolish. He levers himself up into a full sitting position, ignoring the aches and twinges that come with the movement in favor of keeping his dignity, and easing her concern. Of course she is worried about him. Fussing over the old man. What else would a vibrant young woman want with his rotting carcass? Still Uther will feel better when she is gone.

“I'm fine, Morgana,” he lies. “Barely a scratch, and Gaius has tended even that far past the point that was truly needed, and left me some ointment to tend to it still further, as I will. I assure you, Child, you may rest free of worries for my old bones.”

Morgana doesn't take the hint that she is being given leave to go. Instead, she plants herself on the edge of his bed. Stubbornly or obliviously, Uther can't quite say. She is so like both of the two young people who had a hand in making her. Headstrong. Sometimes willfully blind. Seeing what she wants to see. Heedless of the past and the future, of causes and consequences.

Uther shifts uncomfortably once more under the weight of thoughts and memories he'd rather not entertain just now. Of Vivienne's flashing eyes, the wife of his most loyal friend daring him to dishonor. Of Morgana's reckless defiance in rescuing the Druid boy and (no doubt) paying others to finish the job while he himself served as her alibi.

Of being young and thoughtlessly alive. Of feelings too much and not enough like love. Selfish joy burning to regret. Of real love and joy miraculously rising like a Phoenix from those ashes.  Even the thought of seeing it all burnt again in the fires of lust and betrayal is maddening, intolerable.  Not, Uther remind himself forcefully, that he is being offered any such temptation.

But what then? Why does she remain? When Uther has waited so long for Morgana to speak that he fears she may, likewise be waiting for him, she says, “What you did today was very foolish! Do you know you could have been _killed_?”

For a moment, the King is taken aback. Then he laughs easily. He feels a burst of joy so intense that he is in danger of shedding tears. As always, she is unafraid to challenge him. As unafraid as he is to challenge any man. Like no other woman he has known, including her mother. She is almost a second son to him, this girl bastard who indwells what no man with eyes can deny is a woman's body, but with a warrior's heart.

Morgana's face darkens. Like any young knight, she is insulted by the laughter her sincere concern has seemed to excite. The earnest ferocity of his own martial expression alive in those delicate, beautiful features is so absurd that it only makes Uther laugh harder, angering her all the more. “Protecting my son for certain death was foolish?” he asks, trying his damnedest to stop laughing, dabbing tears from the corners of his eyes. “Do not try to convince me of that, Morgana, or you will be the foolish one.”

Truly vexed now, Morgana raises her head and juts out her chin at him defiantly, eyes shining in the dark. At this proximity, even in the dim light, her beauty is apparent. Palpable. So are her indignation and confusion. Still, Uther can only stare. She is magnificent. A votive goddess chiseled in moonlight. 

That sense of dangerous unreality, of time and mortality and natural order suspended, creeps in again. A man must be wary of any women at this proximity, he thinks. Proximity? Bloody hell, their thighs are touching. Here on this bed, both in their night clothes. Man and Woman. Together. Alone. 

She ought to be terrified. They both ought to be. Indeed, Uther swallows hard. But an instant later Morgan rescues him, bringing him back to reality once more. By being Morgana. By nettling his pride. 

“Arthur is the better warrior,” she all but sneers, still mortally offended. “He is younger, stronger, and far more quick and agile! Twice the man even that you used to be! If _you_ could defeat the wraith, surely it would have given him no trouble at all!”

“Oh really,” Uther tries to laugh it off, unsettled by her intensity, remembering what it was like to fence against this very child at eight or ten years old; the sharp eye and stiff elbow he has had to keep to his guard in order to block the determined stroke of her blunted sword with all her scant weight thrown determinedly behind it. “Well, so then,” he tosses off with a deliberately provocative grin, “Why do you not disturb _his_ rest with your songs of praise?”

“ _ **Because!”**_ Morgana shouts, biting off the word and spitting it at him, near apoplectic with frustration, _ **“I am not interested in Arthur!!!”**_


End file.
